The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi Read online

  “Sad to say, Ferrara is not a beautiful city,” he explained. “Its streets are mean and its buildings old-fashioned. But Duke Ercole has grandiose plans for improving the city —”

  “Is he a handsome duke? Like our Marchese Francesco?” Jehiel interrupted, ever concerned with the handsomeness of men and the beauty of women. “And does he ride a Barbary horse?”

  “He does ride a horse,” Papa answered. “For he is a soldier, a great condottiero, like our Marchese Francesco. But the Estes do not care as passionately for horses as the Gonzagas. Duke Ercole is more interested in beautifying his city. He is even now building a new addition to Ferrara which will have the broadest streets in Europe. People have begun to call it the Herculanean Addition since Duke Ercole is named after the god Hercules. One of these days, Ferrara may be the most modern city of all.”

  Jehiel was not interested in town planning or in any duke who was. He quickly switched his attention to a new subject: his grandmother and grandfather and aunts and uncles and cousins in Ferrara.

  “Is La Nonna a very beautiful lady, Papa?” he asked.

  Papa smiled broadly. “I wouldn’t exactly call your grandmother beautiful, Jehiel,” he answered with a smile. “Dignified, yes. Imposing, perhaps. But, much as I love my mother, I cannot call her beautiful.”

  “Is she clever?” I asked, intrigued in spite of myself. “Does she read Latin?”

  For some reason I could not understand, my question brought forth an even broader smile from Papa than Jehiel’s. “No, my dear.” Papa patted my hand gently. “I am sorry to say that your grandmother is not a great believer in scholarship for women.”

  “She is a perfect Jewish matron, the soul of piety,” Monna Matilda muttered without looking at him.

  “Indeed she is that,” Papa agreed in a somewhat wry tone.

  “And the house,” I asked, “what is the house like?”

  “It is big. A tall house,” Papa answered. “With four stories and many rooms. In fact, it is a palace.”

  “A palace!” Jehiel’s eyes widened. “Does it have beautiful stables with pictures of horses on the walls?” He had once seen Marchese Francesco’s stables with a fresco on the wall of each stall and had never forgotten the sight.

  “No pictures in your grandfather’s stable,” Papa answered. “Sorry.”

  “But there are ponies, aren’t there, Papa?”

  “There were ponies when your Aunt Sofronia and I were children,” Papa answered. “And I daresay there will be ponies again. But you must remember that this is your grandfather’s house. And La Nonna’s of course. They are the ones who decide things there, not like at Mantova where your mother and I —” He broke off, looked down at Mama, and was abruptly silent, putting an end to conversation for the afternoon. The day was dying and our hope with it.

  Just then the manager and his wife came bounding up the stairs, breathless and red-faced but smiling. Tucked away in a back street, they had found a shopkeeper who either had never heard of Fra Bernardino’s interdiction or, like Pepino the boatman, loved Jewish gold more than he loved his eternal Christian soul. From that lapsed Christian they had gleaned a bountiful harvest — armfuls of fresh bread, sacks of cheese and two kegs of wine! If I close my eyes and concentrate, I can smell the yeasty fragrance of that bread even now. What a perfume!

  Everyone smiled. Jehiel cheered. Zaira laid out her cloak on the worm-eaten board atop the trestles and prepared to divide up the bounty.

  Suddenly, a powerful voice arrested her with a terse command. “Stop, woman!” It was Monna Matilda, back in full form. “Cease your preparations for this heathen feast!”

  Cecilia began to cry, closely followed by Dania and, I must admit, me and Jehiel. Not a morsel of food had passed our lips for almost a full day. Were we now to be denied the very staff of life by this virago?

  “Have you forgotten the Passover? The Lord’s prohibition against unleavened bread?” she berated us. Next, she would prevent us from drinking the wine because it had been handled by an uncircumcised person, and the cheese because the goats had slept next to pigs.

  The first to speak out was Rov Isaac. “Woman . . .” he began. But the virago overwhelmed him with a bellow of “Godless priest!”

  Just in time to save us all, a new opponent entered the lists: Zaira. Tearing off a piece of the loaf, she began to wave it in the air like a banner and shouted, even louder than the old woman, “This bread is as bitter to us as matzoh was to the Jews of Egypt.”

  “Hear, hear!” we all shouted.

  “Have we not been driven from our homes?” Zaira continued. “Are we not homeless? Behold this woman . . .” She pointed down at Mama. “Are not suffering and humiliation her lot?”

  Monna Matilda lowered her head, in silent confirmation of that assertion.

  “Well then,” Zaira concluded triumphantly, “this bread is our bread of affliction. And we will eat it!”

  Without another word, she began to tear off pieces of the loaf and hand it around. When she reached Monna Matilda, everyone held his breath. Zaira held out the morsel with a deferential air. A long look passed between the two women.

  Monna Matilda hesitated. But at last she stretched out her hand and took the bread from Zaira. Then, all of us together, as if we had rehearsed it, the company began to recite: “Baruch ato adonai, elochenu melech holum . . .” “Blessed be He, O Lord, our God, King of the Universe, Who hath given us matzoh . . .”

  5

  Tomorrow is the anniversary of Christ’s birthday in a manger. There was no room for His mother at the inn. Is it not fitting that I recall for you on the eve of that day the birth of my brother Gershom, to whom the world also denied its bounty?

  Admittedly, we did have our room at The Ox, that one small, smoky, smelly, scabrous chamber. But, like the Christ, my brother came into this world poorer than the poorest peasant babe, without a drop of sweet oil to cleanse him or a soft cloth to swaddle him or a dram of honey to rub on his gums for his appetite’s sake.

  By then, two nights and one day had passed since my mother felt the first stab of pain at Borgoforte, and the hours had bleached her face to a chalk white and smudged her eyes with smoky circles very like the eyes that Maestro Raffaello Santi gives the Christ children he places in the arms of his beautiful sad Madonnas. Pretty as those children seem at first glance, if you look at them carefully you cannot help but note the presentiment of death in their black-rimmed eyes. That is the aura I saw circling my mother’s eyes. But she acted out the charade of hope until the end for our sake.

  That morning she allowed the women to prop her up at the side of the bed in the traditional position for birthing. And she endured patiently the poking and prodding which accompanied Zaira’s and Monna Matilda’s efforts to discern the state of the child within her. From time to time, Zaira took advantage of the space between the pangs to put her ear to Mama’s belly and report to the assembly that the child’s heart was beating strongly. Each time she did it, Papa grasped Mama’s hand tightly and gazed fervently into her eyes.

  The pains were coming regularly now but not any closer together than three Paternosters and an Ave Maria. I took this as a good sign for I saw that the long pauses allowed Mama to recoup her strength betweentimes. In truth her sighs of relief presaged difficulties to come. These birth pains had now been going on for almost two revolutions of the sun with very little progress toward the actual moment of birth. And with each hour that passed, Mama’s strength ebbed away.

  But that secret was artfully hidden from us children and Papa by the women present. With exquisite tact, they lent themselves to Mama’s masque of high hopes and optimism.

  In this improved climate, the manager and his wife went out foraging again, this time in search of gifts for the infant about to be born. But they returned empty-handed, having failed to coax so much as a rag of clean cloth out of the townspeople. />
  Mama bore the news with composure and Papa did manage to contain himself — for her sake, no doubt — for several minutes. Then some barrier within him gave way. Raising his fist to heaven, he began an impassioned oration to the Almighty such as none of us had ever heard from him.

  “Why, why, O Lord?” he groaned. “Why punish her for my sins? Surely she has done no evil. Punish me.” He began to tear at his garments with wild, violent gestures. “I am the sinner. Send me naked into the world. But not an innocent babe . . .”

  To everyone’s astonishment, this outburst brought Mama to her feet. For a moment, she simply stood — a column in the room. Then she spoke. “We must accept the will of God,” she said. “God is just and everything He does is for the best.”

  So saying, she placed a restraining hand on Papa’s forearm, and with her touch a calmness descended upon him. He ceased his ranting and lowered his fist. “It is your suffering that I cannot endure . . .” he explained meekly.

  “But I can,” she answered. “And you must, for my sake. There will be an end to this suffering,” she comforted him, as if he and not she were the sufferer. “Like Job, I know that my Redeemer liveth and that after my skin is destroyed, I shall stand without my flesh and see Him. Yes, Daniele, I will see God for myself . . .”

  At which point her sudden burst of strength failed and she placed her hand on Papa’s shoulder to be lowered down onto the bed. And from that position, in a voice barely audible to the rest of us, she continued, her eyes caressing my father lovingly as she spoke.

  “My dear, you yourself must go into the countryside and find what is necessary for our child. Swaddling bands and sweet oil and salt to rub on him and honey and a wet nurse for him. He will be tired after his long travail . . .” She patted her belly as if to comfort the little one. “He will need richer sustenance than my poor breasts can give him in my wretched state.”

  I saw Papa open his mouth as if to protest leaving her. Then, most amazing, I saw my mother place her hand over his mouth to silence him. “Do this for me, Daniele,” she requested politely, as one might ask for a draft of wine or some such small service. “Do it for the love you bear me and for our son.”

  Like every other expectant mother in Mantova, she had paid a secret visit to the pure spring at the very moment she felt the child’s first stirrings. And there she had squeezed a drop of her blood in the spring to test if the droplet would sink or rise. And indeed, that droplet had sunk, foretelling the birth of a son.

  Once Papa understood that he had no choice but to go, he lost no time about it. A quick kiss for Mama, for me, for Jehiel, and he was off.

  “Wait!” Mama held up her hand. “Take the boy. He needs air. Grazia will stay with me.”

  Without a word, Papa whisked Jehiel up in his arms and went clattering off down the steps — the sooner gone, the sooner to return. I remained, amazed and proud to be chosen to stay at Mama’s side.

  Mama lay still, listening to the echo of the footfalls on the stairs until they faded to nothing. Then she beckoned to Rov Isaac and the shohet.

  “Come,” she said. “We must talk.” And to Zaira and Monna Matilda and me: “Take a cup of wine and bathe your foreheads. I will need you soon.”

  Everyone obeyed her quiet commands without demur. Zaira drew me over to the wine cask, leaving Mama and the men to their privacy. They spoke too quietly to be overheard. Yet, from time to time, a phrase came to our ears.

  “Wait for the master, I beg you, madonna,” we heard the rabbi plead.

  And, more than once, from the shohet: “No, I cannot. I cannot do it.”

  And, quiet but with a steely edge that cut through the silence in the room, we heard Mama’s voice, cold as a tomb: “You can do it. And you will do it.”

  Then she turned to me and the two women. “We are going to take the baby from my womb,” she announced. “For I am dying . . .”

  Dying! “Mama . . .” I threw myself upon her, heedless of her great belly and her pain.

  Very gently, she raised my head and looked into my eyes. “I chose you to stay with me, little Graziella, because I need one of my own loved ones to give me strength to bear what must be borne,” she said. “You are young for the task. But then . . .” I swear I saw the shadow of a rueful smile cross her face. “I am young to die.” She was twenty-eight years old.

  Having prepared herself like a sacrificial offering, Mama instructed Zaira to fetch a small vial of clear liquid from the pocket of her cloak. To me, she gave the task of tearing a small, clean piece from the hem of her chemise. Rending that garment was as painful to me as if I had been ripping the flesh from her bones. But I persevered and was able, without help, to rend the linen and present the piece to Mama as she bade me.

  “Now,” she ordered Zaira, “soak the linen in the potion and give it back to Grazia.”

  Zaira did so.

  Then Mama spoke to me. “This is my last medicine,” she explained in the light, clear voice which had returned to her in this extremity. “When I raise my hand like this” — she held up her left hand — “I wish you to squeeze the cloth a drop at a time onto my tongue. One drop at a time. On my tongue. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  Then she very carefully removed the betrothal ring from her second finger and held it out to me.

  “Put this on your finger,” she said. “It is a token of my trust in you. If your courage fails you, look at this ring. It has never left me since the day your father placed it there. It will give you strength.”

  I slid the ring onto my finger, hardly feeling the weight. For a numbness had settled in me, and my gestures proceeded without my will.

  “Now take your place at the top of the bed,” Mama instructed me, as quietly and calmly as if ordering me to take my seat at the table. “And remember, you are my strength. Do not cry out. No tears. Only love and strength.” Then, leaving me to my duty, she addressed the others.

  “Are you ready, Ser Moses?” she asked the shohet.

  “Oh, madonna, I cannot . . .”

  Mama’s silent reproach stopped him like the flick of a whip. With a slow, shuffling step, he made his way over to the corner where the boxes had been piled. With tears coursing down his face, he peered into the depths of his box and at length brought out a long, narrow tooled-leather sheath. One twist of the hand and the mohel’s knife — his circumcision tool — glinted in the dusty gloom like a silver ribbon.

  Slower than ever, the shohet made his way back to Mama’s side, the unsheathed knife in his hand. He motioned to Monna Matilda to pour some water over his hands. Then, without being asked, she held out a beaker of wine. He plunged the knife into the beaker up to the hilt. Then he drew it out and stood waiting, holding up the knife dripping purple.

  “Uncover my belly,” Mama ordered Zaira. It was swollen, blue-veined. I felt I could see the baby’s heart pulsating under the mottled skin.

  “Pray for me, Rabbi,” Mama asked in a humble tone.

  The rabbi opened his prayer book and began to fumble for his place with trembling hands.

  “Kiss me, Grazia.”

  I bent and kissed her mouth. It was dry to the touch and cold.

  “I am ready, Ser Moses,” she stated calmly.

  “Oh, madonna . . .” the poor old man wailed.

  “Do it now!” Mama ordered in a voice which shook the room.

  The knife flashed through the air. I saw it make a slice in Mama’s flesh. Then another. Another. I thought, Where is the blood? There was so little blood.

  Then I heard a terrifying wail from my mother and a last whispered instruction. “Quick. Quick. Save my baby.”

  Her arm went up. My signal. True to my task, I began to squeeze the saturated cloth onto her tongue drop by drop. She swallowed those drops in greedy gulps, as if they contained the stuff of life itself instead of what I suspec
t was the stuff of death. I never knew for certain that there was poison in that vial. Whatever it was, it brought her peace.

  My brother was born quickly and without mishap. The shohet exposed the birth cavity with the first cut. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him reach into Mama’s open belly and pull out the bloody, mucused ball of humanity that was my beautiful brother Gershom.

  One smack from Monna Matilda and the tiny creature emitted a howl quite out of proportion to his diminutive size. My eyes leapt up toward the sound. Until that moment, I had not betrayed my charge by so much as a single moment of inattention. But that first howl of fury and delight struck a chord in me deeper than duty.

  I do not know what I expected to see when I lifted my eyes from Mama’s face. Something splendid, I suppose. Certainly not the squirming spidery creature that I now beheld. As I watched, Monna Matilda measured out four lengths of her finger on a long loose string of flesh that hung down from the baby’s belly. At a nod from her, Zaira took the shohet’s knife from his hand and, with one quick slash, severed the cord and tied it around itself, pulling it taut with a jerk as one secures a rope.

  I looked down at Mama to see if she was as disappointed as I was in the miraculous child. Her eyes were wide. Staring. I whispered in her ear. “Mama . . .”

  She did not answer.

  Zaira leaned over and pulled Mama’s eyelids down over her eyes. Then, looking straight into my eyes and speaking slowly and clearly, as if to make certain I did not misunderstand, she said, “She is dead, Graziella. Your mother is dead.”

  6

  The Via Grande gave us a foretaste of what our life was to be in Ferrara — narrow, confining, mean, and muddy. One feature alone added a dash of interest to this moldy morass: a series of overhead fly bridges that connected the fine houses of the Via Grande with their servants’ quarters across the way. Mantova contained no such passages, not even in the oldest quarters of the town. As we made our way along, the tip-tap of footsteps and the echoes of laughter in the covered passages above our heads did add a certain charm to the surroundings. But in no other way did Ferrara compare favorably with Mantova in my young eyes.